{"id":47296,"date":"2020-05-21T18:09:45","date_gmt":"2020-05-21T18:09:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2020\/05\/21\/covid-19-is-probably-going-to-put-a-dent-in-military-manpower\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T13:31:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T13:31:08","slug":"covid-19-is-probably-going-to-put-a-dent-in-military-manpower","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/coronavirus\/2020\/05\/21\/covid-19-is-probably-going-to-put-a-dent-in-military-manpower\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID-19 is probably going to put a dent in military manpower"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Defense Department is bracing for a manning<\/a> gap this year, the Pentagon\u2019s top personnel official told reporters Thursday, after the COVID-19 pandemic<\/a> forced the services to slow their intake of new troops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While almost all recruiting<\/a> shops have moved online and continued to bring in new prospective troops, social distancing measures at military entrance processing stations and reception units have throttled the number of new trainees coming in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo we haven\u2019t really seen a drop in recruiting at all, but the accessions throughput has slowed down,\u201d Matthew Donovan, defense under secretary for personnel and readiness, told Military Times. \u201cSo we expect that there may be some shortfall in end strength by the end of the year, but the services are doing a lot of mitigation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every year, military manpower is balanced out by recruiting and retaining a certain number of troops, as regular attrition for retirements and discharges cuts into end strength numbers. Each service\u2019s manpower offices can tweak these numbers by offering enlistment or retention bonuses in times when they need to plus-up, or by tightening standards when they need to draw down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As accessions have slowed in the first half of this year, Donovan said, the services have been more flexible in their retention efforts, to make up for the shortfall on the back end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat they\u2019ve done is they\u2019ve put in voluntary extensions of reenlistment periods or voluntary dates of separation being pushed out,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd you could go to the services for more detail, but that has been effective so far.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\t